We're back!

2025 has been off to a whirlwind start for our family - we've packed down our Australia home in Toowoomba, Queensland and we've rejoined Mercy Ships for the year along with our kids!

It's been almost exactly 5 years since we ended our service with Mercy Ships.  We knew in our hearts that it was time to build a life for ourselves somewhere "on land" and God has been so very gracious to us!  Toowoomba has quickly become a place that really feels like a home for our family.  Both our children are born there, and we have a house of our own now too.  Sometime at the end of 2023 after our daughter Alette was born God began to move in our hearts and we thought it might be time to consider what serving internationally along with our children could look like.  We began taking steps in 2024 to investigate if this was a possibility, and the pieces slowly came into place.  

Once we had a "green light" that we are really doing this, we spent a busy January and February packing down our house and doing the necessary medical/documentation preparations.   We boarded the Africa Mercy the last week of Feb and have since been settling into a very different life for our family!  It has been pretty surreal, I (Suzanne) don't think I could have dreamed this up when I first boarded the ship in 2012.

Here's a few bullet points from our first 8 weeks here:

-Nick is back to doing what he loves - mentoring others in the techniques needed to treat kids with clubfeet!  This program is a follow-up to the initial training he did here in Madagascar in 2015/2016, the focus is on management of older children.  He did a lot of work before we left Australia to get this program set up (lots of planning/coordination calls with local partners, various Mercy Ships departments and also the Ministry of Health), and he really hit the ground running.  

-The kids are adjusting very well!  I won't lie, those first 4-5 weeks were tough.  Hats off to all the families who have gone before us.  There are so many new things for the kids to take in every time they set foot outside of the cabin, and it was pretty overwhelming at first.  We all also got hit with a few viruses since being here, it's kind of just part of the community living.  We seem to be through some of the toughest parts of the adjustment to being here.  The kids seem much more relaxed.

-Jonas is in preschool with three other children from the USA, Switzerland and the Netherlands.  He attends each weekday morning from 9 till lunch, and it's honestly been one of the easiest parts of this transition, he's loved it from the first day and been quite comfortable in his classroom thanks to a wonderful teacher.

-Alette is the youngest crew member on the Africa Mercy.  She is very fond of waving at people and seeing them smile back at her.  She loves going places and often goes and gets her shoes and brings them to me.  She's nearly 17 months now, and has started saying some words.

I try to get the kids outside in the afternoon as much as I can.  We have a playground on the uppermost deck of the ship, and there's also a few places in town that I enjoy taking the kids.  They both love drinking a fresh coconut with a straw.  The ladies at the market laughed when Alette didn't want to share with me.  

More updates to follow, this one is just to say "hi" and let people know what we're up to.  Prayers appreciated while we re-learn how to do this and lead our children too.  Nick and the team are casting patients each week together at the local hospital, we'd also love prayer that the patients and participants thrive!  

If you feel led to help our family financially in this endeavour, click here for our Australia fundraising page, or find the details on the "giving info" page at the top of the screen.  Click here for the link to the USA fundraising page (also linked on the giving info page). 

We'd always love to hear from you - either via social media message or email! (suzanneveltjens@gmail.com, nickveltjens@gmail.com)

"Leaving leaving"

Hi friends,

A quick update from Nick and me….

We’re still on the ship in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.  We’ve been maintaining a “quarantine bubble” along with our fellow crew members for 70 days! 

If you missed our last newsletter, here’s a link to it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bDIlVOtp_qBi7_UUY80Uzii0WLGVpd2t/view?usp=sharing

Our days are spent working in other departments (housekeeping for both of us) and finishing documentation from our “normal” jobs.  We’re both busy writing road maps for the people who come after us in our work in the Operating Room and MCB (Medical Capacity Building).

The major update is that we have tickets to Brisbane in a week’s time – the plan (unless there are flight changes, which is common right now) is that we’ll leave next Sunday the 31^st and arrive in Australia on 2^nd June.  We’ll need to do a 2-week quarantine in a hotel, and then we’ll get started with what comes next!

The main thing right now is preparing to go because we are “leaving leaving”… around here it means something different when you say it twice.  It’s a common conversation on the ship – “oh are you going?  Are you coming back or are you LEAVING leaving?”  So yes, we are leaving with a capital “L”.  haha. 

Even before all the COVID changes, we had decided that this would be our last outreach (for now anyway) and we feel God moving us in new directions.  It’s time to invest into our lives in one of our passport countries, and we are looking forward to it!  I’d like to grow an herb garden, I think.

Blessings over you, friends, wherever you are right now!  And do please pray for us in the coming days as we walk through goodbyes and grief, change.  We see SO many good gifts from God.  He’s opening doors for us, and our next steps are becoming more clear. 

We’re gathering up the sweet gifts of time in this community we love…. Here’s a few photos of recent happenings….(this is a great place to be in quarantine, with 200 family members!)

The newest muster station name callers for drills and ship emergencies.
It's very windy so we had a hard time keeping those yellow hats on.  During the field service we wouldn't normally have roles like this because I'm in the OR and Nick is often off-ship.

    

Nick hosted a penalty shoot-out tournament on Deck 7 (there's a netted area there that kept the ball mostly on deck...it escaped once and was amazingly rescued from blowing into the sea by Rodrigo)

Selfie 1  = day of the last surgery

Selfie 2 = a few weeks later...a receptionist, housekeeper, and cook

  

 

Nick and team have been doing weekly video in-services with the team in Senegal, and they've had people joining in from the ship, Senegal, Madagascar, England, Australia and America!  It's gone really well!

Operating Room (what was left of us at the time!) serving ice cream

This song has become and anthem for many during this season, and for us too! 

Celebrating a 10 year journey!

It's been 10 years since Nick first boarded the Africa Mercy!

Nick first joined Mercy Ships as in Togo on 15 February 2010.  

I found a few quotes from Nick's first blog post that made me smile....

"So I arrived last Monday and the first thing they did was take a photo of me for my ID badge, which isn’t the best thing after a 16 hour journey when your looking like a raccoon in head lights...anyways they don’t waste anytime here, I had to get up at 5am to go to the first of the screening days"

"Now I’m slowly learning what exactly I will be doing on board - but basically I am the hospital’s physio - so i will be doing some burns work, mainly kids Ortho and some Maxillo-facial. I also found out that I will be involved in rolling out this Ponseti program in Togo..."

"anyways so that’s about it ... my French is definitely coming along and I reckon ill be speaking some form of French when I get back (not sure how good though)"

"Its funny the ship is starting to feel like home..."

Well done, Nick!!! I'm so proud of who you are.  

Happy New Year!

Just a quick update to say Happy New Year to our friends and family!

Suzanne about to head to work in the OR,
 and Nick heading off to a meeting at a local hospital

We're with the ship in Senegal!  After our 5 months in N'zao, Guinea at the beginning of 2019, we went back to living on board the ship in August and sailed in to Dakar, where the ship will be docked until June 2020.


Nick is busily up to doing what he does best - treating clubfoot kiddos, building relationships, and working together with a really great team of people.  The Mercy Ships team is working together with a team of four pediatric surgeons from a big public children's hospital in Dakar.

Clubfoot team photo after running an advanced clubfoot course in September

They currently have 12 kids in treatment, and will start again with another group of kids in January.  The Dakar team has been really encouraged by the results they are getting together, and has really seen what the Ponseti method can achieve, even in kids who are older (they are treating several kids around the age of 10 years) 

Team ice cream outing

Presenting Certificates at the end of the course

I have continued working in our operating rooms, which has included being a team leader two surgical specialties - plastics reconstructive and orthopedics.  Our OR team is constantly changing, with many nurses, surgeons and anesthesia providers coming for 2-3 weeks.  Every Monday, our team is slightly different.  

OR 1 has been my home for the last several months, both plastics and ortho surgeries happen here

Team leading means coordinating many aspects of the patient care (seeing each patient before they come to the OR, making sure that we have the correct supplies available for each case, etc), and also doing a lot of communication to keep the team on the same page.  Our teams are normally a mix of crew have visited the ship in the past, and people who have come for the first time, and we usually have people from 4-5 different countries working together in each room.  It's a very special hospital, and I love being a part of it!

Here's a couple team selfies from the past months...there are many more faces than this (this is just what I had on my phone at the moment)...thank you to everyone who I've had the joy to work with since surgeries started in August!

We've really begun to fall in love with Senegal, and we're looking forward to the second half of our visit and the months ahead.  At the moment, we are enjoying a few days off ship at the beach- a nice break after some busy months and before we jump into January.

Happy New Year, friends!  Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!

Update – a short season “off ship”

Update from us - we are headed to the states for a leave of absence from Mercy Ships over the holidays!  This has been in the works for some time, and we actually departed the ship yesterday evening.  

Here's what is coming up for us:

1- Spend the holiday season in the United States, and have some precious, intentional time with family

2- Return to Guinea at the end of January

3 - Continue serving as Mercy Ships crew, but we will be located off-ship in the interior of Guinea for the remainder of the ship’s visit.  We will be visiting Hope Medical Center (here’s their webpage), where Nick has previously taught the Ponseti method.  (see more details below)

We knew that we would have this break coming up when we went into the busy season of Advance and program set-up here in Guinea.  We chose to do this for a few reasons.  We’re into the 4^th year of our service since returning to the ship as a married couple.  We love being here and serving here, but know that it’s also good to have time away from the intensity of life on board.  We love our work, and we want to be wise in how we serve.  We’re very happy to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with family in the states- last time we had Christmas there was in 2013 before we got engaged!  

A recent photo of Nick at work in the clinic - I love the look that kiddo is giving him, haha! :-)

The Ponseti program in Conakry is left in VERY good hands: Aisling (physical therapist from the UK who is leading the team), Ashley (Physical Therapist from USA) and Marina (nurse from Switzerland who has worked on the ponseti program for the last two years).  

After the holidays and when we return to Guinea, we will be continuing our season “off ship”.  We are still serving with Mercy Ships, but we will be working at a hospital in the interior of the country called Hope Medical Center.  Hope has partnered with Mercy Ships in different ways over the years, and Nick went to teach the Ponseti method to some of the staff at Hope in 2014.  Sadly, he was not able to stay and complete the whole program due to the Ebola crisis, which originated not far from the area.  We are thrilled to be able to return there together, and continue the partnership that began in 2014.  We want to support Hope in whatever ways we can so that they continue to have a flourishing clubfoot clinic!  One important aspect of clubfoot treatment is wearing braces on a special schedule.  In addition to treating patients together, Nick and another trainer will teach a special course on brace making.  I will work together with Nick on the Ponseti program and other areas as needed. 

Leaving the ship is bittersweet right now- I (Suzanne) am so looking forward to the months ahead, but I also dearly love my teammates and our community here on board the ship.  To our colleagues on board – we want GOOD things for you, we pray blessings over you, and we know that God is with you in the coming months.  When I think about you, Jesus’s words from John come to mind- “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”  I am cheering you on, Africa Mercy Crew – and may one of the ways that you love and serve the country of Guinea be your example of loving and serving one another. Know that we will be missing you!